[Kari]

I am very interested in freezing my child’s credit. Yet the process (much more laborious than doing it as an adult) seems risky.

You need to fill out online forms, print them, and send those forms via mail along with copies of your and your kid’s birth cert, ID, and SS card.

This seems very risky, especially considering you have to do this separately with all three bureaus.

What’s your opinion on safety concerns, putting all this in the mail vs. leaving credit unfrozen?

[Anna]

We signed our kids all up for LifeLock when they were born versus freezing their credit.

[Jessica]

NerdWallet has a recent article on this.

I sent all the docs via certified mail (extra $4.85 per envelope).

[John]

Probably a wise thing to do. Scammers on onto this, and moving into the realm of identity theft for kids.

If they change all the contact info, they could do this for yearrs or decades before getting caught.

[Lisa]

I did it for my daughter during my maternity leave. It was tedious but worth it.

When I was 11, a stranger used my SS to open a bank account!!

I think I paid for tracking and signature confirmation.

[Bill]

The vast majority of is fraud involving kids is by their own family. If you are divorced or have family members that are kinda sketch, I’d freeze it even though there is a small risk of mail fraud.

Otherwise? We haven’t frozen our own kid’s.

[Michelle]

We did not do it, but I see why people go thru the hoops. My social was used for an attempted credit line when I was a minor.

It was caught.

Had nothing to do with family and I was too young to remember but I think maybe they even said it was a simple handwriting mistake

[Kim]

I did it and it wasn’t that difficult. I sent the documents via registered mail and I believe I only had a send copies of those identifying documents, not the originals.

With so many school districts being hacked nationwide, I thought it was a good preventative measure.

Almost exactly a year after I froze my kids’ credit, our school district was hacked.

[Author]

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